Comment by shaboinkin

Slightly tangential, but I wonder how much energy savings could be had if street light timings factored in the energy it takes to get cars moving from a stop to the posted speed limit from one intersection to the next. Terrible light timings around my area mean 20-30 cars all start getting to move only to stop a short distance later because one car on a side street happened to approach the sensor when a larger intersection turned green, which leads to a snowball affect where the timings at the next major intersection don’t consider the odd side street breaking the flow, causing more and more timing issues. This affects not just gas/electricity usage but also tire and brake wear.